The super’s grizzled brows knitted in a frown. ‘I’m not saying that, Gently. I’ll leave you to be the judge of when you can no longer usefully continue the investigation. The point I’m making is that we should look at the thing realistically. For instance, those men of mine at the stations and the bus terminus.’
‘You can have them back now,’ Gently shrugged.
‘And the two men you put on the taxis… they’ve checked and re-checked every hackney-carriage driver in town.’
Gently looked obstinate. ‘That taxi must be somewhere.’
‘You say it must — but your only evidence is Wylie’s and Baines’s statements. I wouldn’t be inclined to give it too much weight if I were you.’
‘They’d no reason to lie.’
‘They’d every reason to lie. They wanted to make it seem that Frenchy was the principal… it could just be that she’s as innocent as she says she is.’
Gently shook his head impatiently. ‘Baines wasn’t lying. The statements agree except where Wylie is trying to whitewash himself.’
‘The fact remains that no taxi driver in town remembers the incident and nobody’s got records of such a journey. Of course it’s just possible that it was a taxi licensed at Norchester or Lewiston that picked them up… you know the distances, you can judge how likely it would be.’
‘I’m sorry… but that taxi has got to be found.’
‘Then what do you suggest — a general check-up of all the taxis in a fifty-mile radius?’
‘It may come to that, though first I would like your men to re-check their re-check… it’s surprising how repetition sometimes jogs people’s memories.’
The super gave Gently what from meaner men would have been classed as a dirty look.
‘Very well… you know your job. But remember that I’ve got plenty of routine work going begging when you’re through with the bottom of the barrel…!’
It was a good exit line and the super duly acted upon it. Gently folded up his map with a sigh and stowed it in the drawer with the Moriarty. He didn’t blame the super. He would have felt exactly the same in the great man’s shoes. Police routine didn’t stop because a couple of Yard men were trying to hatch a murder charge… it just became more difficult. And when the murder charge didn’t look like hatching anyway, well then the Yard men started to become a nuisance about the place. The trouble was that the super hadn’t got an incentive any more. He was reasonably happy with the way things had panned out. His corpse was no longer an unsolved mystery, he had pinched a small handful of auxiliaries in the case and if the principal had made tracks for a far country it wasn’t through any dereliction of the super’s duty… All that really concerned the super now was the propitiation of Christopher Wylie and the making of his peace with the chief constable.
Gently sighed again and unhooked his clammy raincoat. There were times when being a Central Office man wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Accoutred for the fray, he went along to the canteen for a preliminary cup of tea. It was a quiet time there. He had the gloomy room all to himself. Behind the scenes could be heard the chink and clatter of washing-up in progress, but the only other excitement the place afforded was the distant view of someone working on a car under a tilt. Gently sauntered to the window to watch the operation while he sipped. There was something soothing about watching other people grapple with their troubles.
And then, perhaps inspired by the tea, a dreamy expression crept into his eye. He drew closer to the window. He pulled back one of the blue cotton curtains. At one stage he was even pressing his nose against the pane.
Finally he put down his cup half-finished and let himself out into the yard by the side-door.
It was an elderly car of the high-built and spacious days, and the elderly man who worked on it, though not high built, was spacious also. The dungareed rear end of him which protruded from the bonnet was particularly spacious, and so too was the language which rose in a muttered stream from somewhere in the interior. Gently hooked his fingers in the climb-proof wire fence which surrounded HQ property and conducted a leisurely survey.
‘Having a spot of bother?’ he inquired affably.
The stream of language faltered and a red, moon-like face disengaged itself from the oily deeps.
‘Bother! Can’t you hear I’m a-havin’ some bother?’
‘Well… it sounded like a big end gone, to say the least.’
The spacious one heaved himself upright and shored his bulk against the off-side mudguard. ‘Jenny!’ he observed feelingly, ‘that’s the bloomin’ trouble — Jenny!’
‘There’s a woman in the case?’ queried Gently, who wasn’t mechanically minded.
‘Woman? Naow — the Jenny! Stuck away there at the bottom till it’s nearly draggin’ on the ground — an’ they must know it’s goin’ to give trouble — Jennies allus give trouble!’
He waved an adjustable at Gently as though daring him to contradict, but Gently’s interest had slipped to some crude white lettering just visible on the uptilted bonnet. It read: ‘Henry Artichoke, Hire Car, 76 High Street.’
‘This your car?’ he asked casually.
‘’Course it’s my car — who’s did you think it was?’ Mr Artichoke gave the vehicle a glance of mingled affection and exasperation. ‘Good now as half your modern tin-lizzies — only thas like me, getting old …’
Gently nodded understandingly. ‘And how’s business with you these days?’
‘Business? Well — I don’t complain. Though I aren’t saying it’s like it was in the old days-!’
‘Too many charas and coach-trips.’
‘An’ all these new-fangled cars about… still, don’t run away with the idea that I’m complainin’.’
‘Were you doing much last week?’
‘I was out on a trip or two — can’t do without me altogether, you know.’
‘Last Tuesday, for instance. Did you have a trip that day?’
Mr Artichoke ruminated a moment and dashed away a raindrop which had leaked on to his oily cheek. ‘Tuesday… that was the day old Hullah was buried. Yes. Yes. I had a couple of trips on the Tuesday… in the mornin’ I took Sid Shorter over to see his missus at the nursing home. Then last thing they had me out to fetch an old party and her things from Norchester — that’s it!’
‘What time would that have been?’
‘Well, I hadn’t got really set down at the “Hoss-shoes”… that couldn’t have been much after seven.’
‘Then you went to Norchester to pick her up?’
‘Her’n her things — you’d be surprised what the old gal fetched away with her!’
‘Made you late, I dare say…’
‘Late enough so’s I didn’t get into the “Hoss-shoes” again…’
‘It was after ten by the time you’d got her unpacked?’
‘As near to it as makes no difference… parrot she’d got too — damn’ nearly had my finger as I was carting it in!’
‘And where did you take her… what was her new address?’
‘Oh, she was goin’ to live with the Parson of St Nicholas.’
‘Is that the big church?’
‘No — that’s St John’s. St Nicholas is the one down in Lighthouse Road.’
‘You mean down at South Shore?’
‘That’s right… the one with a herrin’ stuck up for a weather-vane.’
Gently relinquished his grip on the wire fence and dived his hand into a pocket that rustled. ‘The Front — was it very busy when you came back that night?’
‘Huh! Usual lot of rowdies — kids, the best part on’m.’
A peppermint cream came to light and lay poised on a stubby thumb. ‘Did you have any luck… like picking up an odd fare?’
Mr Artichoke raised two round eyes grown suddenly suspicious. ‘Here!’ he exclaimed, ‘come to think of it, I don’t like the side of the fence you’re standing on — I don’t like it at all!’
‘It’s the honest side, Mr Artichoke…’
‘That’s as may be — I don’t think I like it!’
The peppermint cream went into Gently’s mouth and was chewed upon thoughtfully. Mr Artichoke watched
